Bonnie Henna in Focus Features' 'Catch a Fire.'
Updated Thu. Oct.
26 2006 7:45 PM ET
Andy Johnson, CTV.ca News
"Catch a Fire" presents the complicated, complex character of South desperately in the opposing causes they are fighting for.
Those powerful, polarized forces pit them against each other, and connect them, creating a microcosm of the entire nation and the conflict that consumed it, and blurring the lines between freedom fighters and terrorists.
Fence, The Quiet American) is based on the real life of Patrick Chamusso, played by Derek Luke (Antwone Fisher, Glory Road) Africa in the early 1980s. With a wife (Bonnie Henna), two daughters and a job as a foreman at Secunda, an important oil refinery that stands as a monument to the nation's self sufficiency, Chamusso is as their white oppressors, and the much smaller, though powerful, white population is fighting desperately to hold onto the status quo.
Chamusso has a lot to lose, however, and no interest in rocking the boat.
On the other side of the conflict is Nic Vos, played expertly by Tim Robbins (Mystic River, The Shawshank Redemption). Vos is a shrewd, calculating and cold colonel in the national Police Security Branch.
apartheid.
"Between you and me Patrick, apartheid can't last. Twenty-five million blacks, three million whites. We're the underdogs.
We're the ones under attack," Vos tells Chamusso grimly.
When a bomb is detonated at Secunda, a series of circumstances leads Vos to Chamusso's door, sparking a volatile relationship that will shape both of their lives.
from a man desperate to protect his family.
By the time Vos eventually releases Chamusso, the man who once had country from oppression, whatever the consequences.
Slovo, the exiled leader of its military wing, in Mozambique. Patrick offers himself as a freedom fighter for the cause.
"Once you cross that fence, once you decide to fight back, everything is different," Joe Slovo tells him. "You cannot contact anyone on the other side. That means no phone calls, no letters.
You may never see your family again."
Chamusso understands that the stakes are high, but he has been driven to a desperate sense of justice, and has little left to lose.
With his insider knowledge of Secunda, Chamusso helps plot a one-man attack on the oil refinery, planned in accordance with the ANC's philosophy that no lives should be lost.
The bold assault and tense climax bring Chamusso and Vos face to face once again.
"There's nothing else you can do with me," says Patrick when he confronts his nemesis. "My life is finished.
I may never see my children again, but when they speak of me, they will say he was a man who stood up for something right. A man who said I must do something now. What will your children say of you?
"
In a powerful moment, Vos is faced with the reality that Patrick has believes in. And Vos, through his determination to suppress the rebellion, has made Patrick into what he has become.
to Shawn Slovo, Joe Slovo's daughter.
following nearly a decade in prison. She told CTV.ca that she simply brief, though critical role.
"We just sat down," Slovo told CTV.ca in an interview from Los Angeles. "He was very disoriented, obviously, having spent that period Africa.
We just sat down and I took his story down, I just let him talk about his life and about these events."
She recorded the conversations, but packed them away after those few days, allowing the dust of time and historical context to settle before she revisited them.
of SA, with many predicting revenge attacks and years of violence and transitioned to democracy.
story to the world. In the meantime she had suffered her own losses. Her father passed away and her mother Ruth First, an academic and anti-apartheid activist in her own right, was killed by a parcel bomb sent to their home.
Though the apartheid era was over, it was still a very volatile time in SA.
story I kind of had to put it away for 10 years, through the terms of Nelson Mandela's government, until one had recognized there was a kind of miracle happening in SA," she said.
of the ANC.
But Slovo said it wasn't her intention to pay tribute to Patrick or her dad. Instead, she said, she chose to write the man -- an unsung hero with an extraordinary story.
father Joe Slovo, but an ordinary working man like most people on this planet, just concerned with his family and his life and his security and a future and a good job.
It's that that I related to in the story," she said.
Overwhelmingly, this film is about forgiveness. Years after his imprisonment and with his freedom long secured, Patrick has the opportunity to take his revenge on Vos.
But despite the immense losses he suffered at his hands, and the conflict in his heart, he makes the right choice.
In that way, he represents the ongoing struggle among South Africans to move forward and forgive, while never forgetting the cost of freedom.
"Nelson Mandela, our leader, our father, he told us we could never be free until we learn to forgive," Patrick says.
And so, he forgave.
News RSS